JAMESTOWN'S Billy Baynes has the Olympics firmly in his sights.
The 17-year-old is already on the right track, having recently been named in the top 20 clay shooters under 21, and having represented SA at national titles four times.
Sharp shooting skills are in Billy's blood, with his mother Deserie a Commonwealth Games gold medallist and Olympic bronze medallist and his father having represented Australia at world titles.
But Billy wants to attract more people to competitive shooting, and his SACE Stage 2 Research Project has allowed him to make an impact.
He is one of 23 Year 11 students undertaking their research project at Cleve Area School this year.
The project is a compulsory, student-driven investigation that asks students to select a topic, pose an investigation question and follow that research through to an ultimate answer.
"My question was how can sporting shooters like myself get more of the community involved with the sport, particularly younger people and females," Billy said.
"I put out some surveys online and though facebook, took some surveys across to the national titles in NSW, and all the feedback I got on them was to have a trial day."
Billy spoke to his research project home group teacher, Seonie Robst, about the potential of running an event as the outcome for his project.
"When Billy started talking to people they found the thing that works best is giving people a chance to come and try and, when they come and try, having some success," she said.
Billy got in touch with Port Lincoln Shooting Club president Ted Stringer and began preparations to run a trial day for Cleve students at the club.
"As part of my research project, to make this event happen, I had to learn how to do a risk assessment - the same way we would for archery or driver training," he said.
"We had to get parental and school permission, I had to stay in contact with Ted at the Port Lincoln club and organise buses, food and programs, manage the grounds and make sure everything was running smoothly.
"I had a lot of lists, made a lot of phone calls and sent a lot of emails."
Seonie said living in a rural area, there was not a student in the room who had not had some experience with firearms in the past, which was part of the safety push.
"If these students are living in a community where they will go spotlighting, or they will have firearms kept by family members, we really need them to have the best understanding of what is safe and acceptable," she said.
"That was provided by the gun club and by Deserie, talking about how if firearms are part of your everyday life or sporting life, what's acceptable and what has to happen."
The day was successful, with a number of Year 10 and Year 11 students participating in the clay target shooting day.
"They (the gun club) had a handful of volunteers come, so every time a student stepped up to shoot they had a coach standing alongside them, which meant every single student had some success," Seonie said.
"The students had so much success the club actually opened up a second trap for the day and showed them how to skeet shoot."
Billy said he was "overwhelmed" with the day's success.
"All the students enjoyed themselves, they all got to hit a target, and they all said that they would do it again," he said.
"I'd love to be able to be a part of running more training days and trial days just because it's a sport that I absolutely love and getting more people involved in it would be absolutely phenomenal."
Seonie said there had been such a "huge" response from students after the event that Deserie and Billy had been approached to see if they would conduct further events in the future.
"That would be above and beyond his project if they wanted to run something like that again," she said.
Billy started competitive shooting when he was 11 years old and has been on an upward trajectory since.
"This year I was lucky enough to make the top 20 under 21s and have been asked to go to an Australian academy," he said.
"I would love to do what mum did and make it into an Australian team and then maybe end up in the Olympics one time in a few years to come.
"Definitely another goal is getting more people to keep trying the sport and keep the sport going."
Club president Ted Stringer welcomed the chance to introduce new people to the sport.
"It's extremely important to get young people involved in the sport," he said.
"You never know where the next medallist is going to come from.
"We certainly saw some talent here and the students were to be commended for their behaviour and safety consciousness."
Billy's mother Deserie has been shooting her whole life and believes knowing how to handle firearms safely and responsibly is especially important for young people growing up in rural communities.
"I just think it's great to educate kids on the safe use of firearms, and we've been having a lot of fun doing it," she said.
"This is a truly equal opportunity sport and a great alternative to the usual netball and football, or maybe just another sport to try when you're too old for the others."